Editorials, Volume 5

Man: The Dwelling Place of God

by A.W. Tozer, 1966
Man: The Dwelling Place of God

The fifth collection of editorials written for The Alliance Witness and other periodicals. Compiled by Anita M. Bailey.

  1. Man: The Dwelling Place of God — Our knowledge of God comes by the direct impression of the Spirit of God upon our spirit.
  2. The Call of Christ — Always a promotion.
  3. What We Think of Ourselves Is Important — Lack of true repentance results from an inadequate view of sin and sinfulness.
  4. The Once-born and the Twice-born — The spirit that dwells in the once-born is forever opposed to the Spirit that inhabits the heart of the twice-born.
  5. On the Origin and Nature of Things — When a true thought enters any man’s mind, it must of necessity be God’s thought.
  6. Why People Find the Bible Difficult — Penitence and humility along with faith and obedience are necessary to a right understanding of the Scriptures.
  7. Faith: The Misunderstood Doctrine — It is not the believing of a statement we know to be true. True faith rests upon the character of God.
  8. True Religion Is Not Feeling but Willing — Religion lies in the will, and so does righteousness.
  9. How to Make Spiritual Progress — The complacency of Christians is the scandal of Christianity. There is every reason why we should all go forward in our Christian lives and no reason why we should not.
  10. The Old Cross and the New — God offers life, but not an improved old life. The life He offers is life out of death.
  11. There Is No Wisdom in Sin — No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does.
  12. Three Degrees of Religious Knowledge — knowledge furnished by reason, by faith, and by spiritual experience.
  13. The Sanctification of the Secular — The man that walks with God will see and know that for him there is no strict line separating the sacred from the secular.
  14. God Must Be Loved for Himself — If we love God as much as we should, surely we cannot dream of a loved object beyond Him which He might help us obtain.
  15. True Faith Is Active, Not Passive — True faith brings a spiritual and moral transformation and an inward witness that cannot be mistaken. These come when we stop believing in belief and start believing in the Lord Jesus Christ indeed.
  16. On Taking Too Much for Granted — The whole company of evangelicals is traveling home supposing things, some of which may not be true. We had better check before we go any farther.
  17. The Cure for a Fretful Spirit — Let us look calmly upon the world; or better yet, let us look down on it from above where Christ is seated and we are seated in Him.
  18. Boasting or Belittling — Self, whether swaggering or groveling, can never be anything but hateful to God.
  19. The Communion of Saints — Whoever is born of God is one with everyone else who is born of God.
  20. Temperament in the Christian Life — temperament has a great deal to do with our religious views and with the emphases we lay on spiritual matters generally.
  21. Does God Always Answer Prayer? — God has not placed Himself under obligation to honor the requests of worldly, carnal or disobedient Christians. He hears and answers the prayers only of those who walk in His way.
  22. Self-deception and How to Avoid It — Grace will save a man but it will not save him and his idol.
  23. On Breeding Spotted Mice — No man has any right to give himself completely to anyone but Christ nor to anything but prayer.
  24. The Unknown Saints — We have but to become aquainted with, or even listen to, the big names of our times to discover how wretchedly inferior most of them are. Godliness is no longer valued, except for the very old or the very dead.
  25. Three Faithful Wounds — All great Christians have been wounded souls, wounded by the Master Himself. Contrition, compassion, and longing after God.
  26. The Wrath of God: What Is It? — His utter intolerance of whatever degrades and destroys.
  27. In Praise of Dogmatism — each generation has had to be converted by the man who contradicted it most.
  28. What Men Live By — Were men everywhere to ignore the things that matter little or not at all and give serious attention to the few really important things, most of the walls that divide men would be thrown down at once and a world of endless sufferings ended.
  29. How to Try the Spirits — Some persons have a positive genius for getting confused, and will mistake illusion for reality in broad daylight with the Bible open before them.
  30. Religious Boredom — Christians today show an increasing impatience with things invisible and eternal and are demanding and getting a host of things visible and temporal to satisfy their fleshly appetites. It is scarcely possible in most places to get anyone to attend a meeting where the only attraction is God.
  31. The Church Cannot Die — The true Church is the repository of the Life of God among men, and if in one place the frail vessels fail, that life will break out somewhere else.
  32. The Lordship of the Man Jesus Is Basic — All longings for immortality that rise and swell in the human breast will be fulfilled in Christ or they will never know fulfillment.
  33. A Do-It-Yourself Education Better Than None — While thinking is the mightiest act a man can perform, it is the one act he likes the least and avoids the most.
  34. Some Thoughts on Books and Reading — The best book is not one that informs merely, but one that stirs the reader to inform himself.
  35. The Decline of Apocalyptic Expectation — It is hard to focus attention upon a better world to come when a more comfortable one than this can hardly be imagined.
  36. Choices Reveal—and Make—Character — We humans are not only in a state of being, we are in a state of becoming; we are on a slow spiral moving gradually up or down.
  37. The Importance of Sound Doctrine — Right thinking about all spiritual matters is imperative if we would have right living.
  38. Some Things Are Not Negotiable — To seek to be friends with those who will not be the friends of Christ is to be a traitor to our Lord.
  39. The Saint Must Walk Alone — Most of the world’s great souls have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one price the saint must pay for his saintliness.
Also by A.W. Tozer:
I Call It Heresy!
God Tells the Man Who Cares
The Christian Book of Mystical Verse
The Best of A.W. Tozer, Book Two
Jesus, Author of Our Faith
Other Items on Related Topics: humility
Orthodoxy
G.K. Chesterton
The Master's Indwelling
Andrew Murray
Humility
Andrew Murray
The Size of the Soul
A.W. Tozer
Take Heed
Watchman Nee

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